Not My Friend
by FaithinBones
Summary: When Lance Sweets is murdered, someone has to break the news to Zach Addy. This story takes place in season 10.
1. Chapter 1

(The Lance to the Heart)

A/N: if you haven't seen Bones 12x01 yet, you might want to skip this chapter for the time being. It contains mild spoilers.

I don't own Bones.

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His friend's memorial service over, Booth thought that he could move on with his life. He didn't want to dwell in the past and yet one phone call forced him to deal with a past he'd rather forget.

 _My name is Dr. Roshan. I saw on the news that Dr. Lance Sweets died . . . was murdered and well, one of my patients is Dr. Zach Addy. You may not know it but, Dr. Sweets visited Dr. Addy once a week. He's been a regular visitor for many years. I believe that Dr. Sweets and Dr. Addy had a close relationship, more friends than doctor patient._

Growing impatient, Booth interrupted the psychiatrist. "I'm busy Dr. Roshan, could you just cut to the chase. Why are you calling me?"

 _Yes, of course. The reason why I am calling you is because Dr. Addy is rather isolated. The only visitor he has or had was Dr. Sweets. I'm afraid if I tell Dr. Addy that Dr. Sweets is dead he may not believe me or at best take it badly. I was hoping one of his friends would come visit him and tell him the news. It might help soften the blow._

Surprised with Dr. Roshan's revelation, Booth stared at the Bobble-head Bobby sitting towards the front of his desk. "Zach hasn't been getting any visits from Dr. Jack Hodgins or Dr. Temperance Brennan?"

 _No. Dr. Brennan stopped visiting at around the same time that Dr. Hodgins did. The only one that has been consistent in visiting Dr. Addy has been Dr. Sweets and now that he's gone . . ._

"Right." Booth rubbed his forehead. "Why are you calling me?"

 _Dr. Sweets left instructions that if anything were to happen that required outside help with Dr. Addy and he was unavailable then I was to call you._

"Me?" Confused, Booth felt a headache coming on. "Why me?"

 _I'm sure I don't know Agent Booth._

Since he trusted Sweets and he knew that Sweets must have had a reason to place him on the contact list, he might as well take care of it. "Look, I'll make some time and come over there this afternoon and talk to Zach."

 _Thank you, Agent Booth. I really do think this will help Dr. Addy._

"Yeah." Booth ended the call, opened his desk drawer and fished out a bottle of aspirin. Lately his life had been nothing but pain and disappointment. Having to talk to Zach about Sweets was going to be hard, but Sweets had trusted him and he'd do it. He couldn't break Sweets' trust.

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Once he was there, Booth considered leaving. He really didn't want to be involved with the former intern and he still wondered why Sweets had thought he should be responsible for Zach. He had never been a friend of Zach Addy, but he realized that bringing in Hodgins or Brennan might be a bad idea. He knew for a fact that they used to visit the doctor on a regular basis and he wondered why they had stopped. There wasn't enough information to allow him to understand what was going on, but he knew that they must have had a valid reason and to get them involved now might just make Zach's situation worse as well as theirs.

Dr. Roshan led Booth to Zach's room in silence. The psychiatrist found Zach to be a very interesting patient and one that he observed almost incessantly. Zach's past with Dr. Brennan and the Jeffersonian might turn out to be the key to a project he wanted to start and now that Lance Sweets was no longer available to Zach the situation might be fortuitous at best.

Pausing in front of the door leading into Zach's room, Dr. Roshan rested his hand on the doorknob. "Agent Booth, Dr. Addy is considered an ideal patient. He isn't disruptive nor does he show aggression. I do know why he is here, but I just thought I would mention that we have never had any problems with him."

"Right." Booth wanted the doctor to open the door so he could get the whole thing over with.

Since the agent didn't say anything further, Dr. Roshan opened the door and led the way in to the room. "Dr. Addy you have a visitor."

Surprised, Zach closed the book he was reading and stared at Booth warily. "What are you doing here Agent Booth? Is something wrong with Dr. Brennan?"

"No she's fine." Booth stood just inside the doorway and clasped his hands on his hips. "I just came by to give you some news."

Since he hadn't seen Booth since the day Caroline Julian had informed him in the hospital that the Master was dead and he was going to be institutionalized, Zach wasn't sure he liked the fact the agent was now in his room. "What news?"

"Dr. Sweets is dead." It sounded harsh, but Booth knew he had to be blunt with Zach. "He was murdered a few days ago."

The blood seemed to drain from his face, leaving Zach paler than normal. "Murdered?"

"Yeah." Booth really didn't want to talk about it. "He was serving a warrant and he was murdered.

Appalled, Zach felt his mouth open as he sat frozen for a few moments, starring at Booth. "I . . . I . . ."

His duty done, Booth nodded his head. "I'm sorry to bring you bad news, Zach."

Slowly, Zach stood up and started to tremble. "You are not my friend. You are not my friend. Why did you come tell me this? You have never been my friend." A feeling of doom coming over him, Zach shook his head. "Hodgins and Dr. Brennan . . . Dr. Sweets was my friend, but you are not my friend. You have to leave now. Leave now."

Not really surprised that Zach was angry, Booth shrugged his shoulders. "If you need help, tell Dr. Roshan to call me and I'll see what I can do."

"YOU ARE NOT MY FRIEND!" Zach screamed at the Agent, tears falling down his cheeks. "LEAVE NOW!"

Unable to help the man, Booth left the room, closing the door behind him. His duty done, Booth made his way out to the parking lot and unlocked his SUV. Turning to look at the entrance to the institute, Booth sighed. "What a waste."

Once Booth was gone and the door was closed, Zach charged over to his bookcase, grabbed some books and threw them at the wall. Over and over he pulled out books and threw them, crying the entire time.

Fascinated, Dr. Roshan attempted to place his hand on Zach's arm only to have it thrown off. Once Zach had emptied the bookcase he pulled on the case and knocked it to the ground. _I didn't kill anyone. I didn't._

Now alarmed, the psychiatrist moved to the door, opened it and called for help.

Zach beat his hands on the walls, screaming mindless words. The only person who knew he was innocent was dead and he might be trapped in the institute for the rest of his life.

When two orderlies arrived, Zach panicked and tried to fight them off, falling on the bookcase and hitting his head on the corner of the solid piece of oak furniture. Before he blacked out, his last thought was of Booth and how the agent had just told him the worst news of his life. _He is not my friend._

Oooooooooooooooo

Let me know what you think of my story. Thank you.


	2. Chapter 2

Thank you for reviewing my story. I appreciate it.

I don't own Bones.

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At first, Zach had been able to count on his friends visiting at least a couple of times a month when he'd first been institutionalized and with weekly visits from Dr. Lance Sweets, life had still been interesting. He had a connection to the outside world and he appreciated it. Over the years his friend's lives had become busier and busier and their visits had become more erratic, but he could still count on their visits.

Cam had visited him a few times, but she was sad whenever she came and after a while her visits stopped. Zach didn't fault her. He knew she was disappointed in him and there was nothing he could do to fix that. Angela had visited him as often as possible, but between her job and her new baby, her visits became a burden to her and suddenly she stopped coming to the institute.

Grateful, he could still count on Dr. Brennan, Hodgins and Lance Sweets to visit him, but that too started to change with time. For a while, all of his friends had stopped visiting him at the institute and this had worried Zach.

His friends had become involved in trying to catch a demented serial killer that had at first made Brennan run away out of fear that Pelant would destroy her somehow. They had all been caught up in the drama of a mad man and in the end, Agent Booth had killed the man when he'd attempted to kill Dr. Brennan.

When Dr. Brennan, Hodgins and Dr. Sweets had resumed their visits it seemed that they had less time for him and visited less often.

Zach blamed Booth for placing his mentor in jeopardy. He had warned Dr. Brennan that she was letting her partnership imperial her life too much, but she had reminded him of her work in war zones and how it wasn't unusual to work under the eye of hostile regimes. She considered the dangerous part of her job the price she had to pay to bring to justice to those that thought it was a right to take another's life. She was unafraid and she wasn't willing to remain at the Lab.

He had also complained to Hodgins the few times he'd seen him since Pelant had been killed, but the entomologist had clearly come down on the side of Dr. Brennan. He hated Christopher Pelant especially after the lunatic had placed a dead body in Hodgins' bedroom and had dared to touch Michael Vincent.

Still they did visit and though it seemed they grew more distant from him he knew he could count on Lance Sweets to visit him on a regular schedule. The young psychologist was his conduit to the outside world therefore Zach wasn't as isolated as he could have been.

Soon both Dr. Brennan and Hodgins had given him what they considered good news. They had been eager to tell him about Dr. Brennan and Booth's wedding and Zach had truly felt sad that he couldn't attend the nuptials, but he'd accepted it. After the wedding the situation worsened and the visits grew fewer and far between. Zach knew that their lives were filled with work and family life and he wasn't part of that anymore.

Finally, what seemed inevitable had happened. Dr. Brennan and Hodgins had stopped visiting. Even Dr. Sweets had for a time skipped their weekly sessions. Their abandonment had made Zach begin to wonder what was going on. It wasn't until he'd snuck out of the Institute and broke into the library down the street that he'd finally understood why.

His trips to the library revealed that Agent Booth had been attacked in his home and had almost been killed. Over the weeks, Zach had ached to escape the institute and help his friends find a way to help Booth, but he knew that his help would not be wanted.

Because he was a verifiable genius and considered dangerous his access to computers had been limited. Using the library's computers, he researched several newspapers and kept track of what was going on in the news about Agent Booth's incarceration. He'd also hacked into the email servers that Brennan, Cam, Angela and Hodgins used. He wanted to know what was going on in his friend's lives and this was the best way to do that. Eventually Booth was released from prison and within days a treasonous organization was uncovered by Booth and his team at the Jeffersonian.

To Zach's horror, Sweets was murdered and shockingly, Agent Booth had been the one to break the news to him.

After Sweets died, Zach realized that he was more isolated than ever. With no visits from his friends and with Dr. Roshans' permission, he'd had several interviews with various psychologists. He had been the center of attention for a number of years when it had been discovered that he had helped a serial killer do his nefarious work. That didn't change over the years and for that the lonely man was grateful. Their visits had been interesting and those inquisitive scientists had helped fill a lot of lonely hours. It amused Zach that he didn't divulge anything truthful about his time as the apprentice of the Master. He knew that the data they were collecting from him would be useless and he didn't really care. If they were good at their jobs they would have realized that he was being untruthful.

Like Dr. Brennan he didn't really trust psychology. It was a soft science and not quantifiable. If these men and women wished to waste their time, that didn't bother Zach. At least he had someone to talk to outside the Institute. This was especially true after Dr. Sweets had died.

Oddly enough, Agent Booth took to visiting Zach once a month after Dr. Sweets had been murdered. Zach would be escorted into the visitor's room where he would be told to sit. The head of Major Crimes would enter the room, choose a chair near Zach and would sit down. Angry with Booth, Zach refused to talk to him since he didn't consider Booth to be a friend. He was the reason that Dr. Brennan didn't visit him anymore. She was busy with her work and with her family and she didn't seem to have time for him anymore. Booth was the center of Dr. Brennan's world now and Zach felt like Booth was the reason he had lost his friends. He also felt that because of the changes in his friend's lives, Booth had been forced to tell him about Dr. Sweets death and that should have been done by someone he actually considered a friend, not the agent.

Zach found it peculiar that the FBI Agent didn't seem to be discouraged about his silence. The man would sit in his chair, give him some news about Dr. Brennan and his children and then leave. The fact was, Zach considered the whole thing rather unfathomable. Why visit someone if they didn't want you too? He had always had trouble understanding motive and Booth's motives were clearly beyond him.

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One day, several months after Sweets had died, Booth had entered the room, sat down and for some reason unknown to Zach, he had not talked about Dr. Brennan or their children.

"Zach, I may not be able to come see you again. I . . . my brother is in trouble. More trouble than you can imagine. I've tried to help him in the past, but these last few years, well . . . well, I tried to get him to take care of his own problems. I quit lending him money and . . . he's made a big mistake and it's possible that he and I may not survive what we have to do." Booth shifted in his seat. He wasn't really sure why he was telling Zach his personal problems, but it felt good to unburden his problems to someone.

"Anyway, if you never hear from me again, it's because I screwed up and I'm probably dead." Booth stood up. "I'm sorry that you're in this place Zach, but you killed a man and rightfully you should be in prison. You're here because Bones needs you to be here. She needs you to be safe." Booth stared at the younger man and asked the question he had always wanted to ask. "Did you really kill that lobbyist, Zach? You confessed, but did you really do it?"

Zach sat in his chair and refused to answer. He didn't consider Booth trustworthy, not like Lance Sweets and he would not give away his secrets so easily.

After a few moments, Booth shrugged his shoulders. "I've had my doubts, but okay." Nothing left to say, the Agent had left with those words hanging in the air.

The next week, Zach had read in several newspapers how Agent Booth and his brother had tried to intercept a list of undercover FBI Agents that had been stolen from the Hoover and was going to be marketed to terrorists. Jared Booth had died and Agent Booth had come close to joining his brother in his exit from life.

Weirdly, Zach considered that news as just more proof that Booth wasn't his friend. The Agent had risked his life and almost died once more. Clearly the man didn't value his life like he should and he didn't care what his absence would mean to Dr. Brennan and his children.

That night, Zach had returned to his room from his excursion to the library, found the picture of Dr. Brennan and Booth that had been taken at their wedding and he'd torn the picture in such a way that you could no longer tell that it was Booth who was standing next to his wife. Booth didn't deserve the family he had and it angered Zach that the agent didn't see that. Booth was not his friend. Oddly enough, he didn't throw Booth's picture away. He just kept it in a drawer away from his picture of Dr. Brennan.

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After all was said and done, Zach was quite shocked when Dr. Roshan had attacked him and tried to kill him.

He'd often wondered over the years if the Master had asked him to kill someone if he would have done as he was told. At the time, the logic of the Master seemed irrefutable and once his enthrallment had been broken by Dr. Brennan he worried about what type of man he really was.

Had he grown so logical and distant that killing someone would have meant so little to him? He didn't know the answer to that question until he held the needle against Dr. Roshan's neck and couldn't plunge the needle in. It was in that second of clarity that he understood that life was too sacred to waste, even that of a man whose aim was to kill him.

Thankfully, Agent Booth had understood that Zach was in personal danger, arrived at the institute in the nick and time and shot Dr. Roshan before the psychologist had killed Zach. As it was, the doctor had hurt Zach and that was bad enough.

Shocked to see Agent Booth, Zach sat up, his hand on his bleeding leg and stared at the agent. "Agent Booth. Why are you here?"

"We figured out who the Puppeteer was and I knew you were in trouble." Booth squatted down next to the injured man and checked his bleeding leg. Removing his phone from his jacket pocket he called 911. The call made, he placed his phone back in his pocket. "We'll get you to the hospital in no time. It's not as bad as it looks. I've seen a lot of wounds, you're going to be alright."

His hand pressed against his leg because of the pain, Zach nodded his head. "I tried to save my life, but when I had the needle pressed against Dr. Roshan's neck I couldn't go through with it. I couldn't plunge the needle in. I can't kill anyone. I can't kill anyone."

Booth patted Zach's leg. "Yeah, I never really thought you could either. My gut told me that you couldn't do it . . . of course when you kidnapped Bones I started to doubt my gut. For a while I really hated you Zach. You scared the shit out of me."

"I'm sorry." Zach felt a little sick from the pain. "I had to do what I did to make Dr. Brennan believe me. I never killed the lobbyist. Dr. Sweets knew it, but he was the only one. Once he was dead, there was no one that knew the truth about me. No one."

A little shocked at the revelation, Booth stood up and loomed over the injured man. "You mean to tell me that Sweets knew you were innocent? Why the hell didn't he tell anyone? I can't believe he did that. Why would he do that?"

"Because I asked him to." Zach exhaled deeply. "Hodgins said that I wouldn't fare well in prison. I'm still liable as an accessory to murder. If everyone thinks I'm insane then I won't go to prison. It's logical."

"Logic!" Booth shook his head. "You know Zach. Sometimes you have to give up logic and try to do the right thing. If we had known you didn't kill anyone, you might have been able to work out something with Caroline. You helped up catch Gorgonzola, so instead of pleading guilty in court and being found guilty of murder but non compos mentis you might be free right now. You probably wouldn't be here or in prison . . . You should have let Sweets do something about this. What you did was stupid."

"Gormogon." Zach stared at Booth trying to determine if the agent was trying to joke with him. "I called him the Master, but everyone else preferred Gormogon."

"Whatever." Booth didn't really care what the serial killer was called. "Serial killers shouldn't have catchy names. I'd rather think of him as a big smelly piece of cheese."

Amused, Zach laughed. "Yes, perhaps you're right. You're reasoning is actually quite sound." Suddenly serious, Zach sighed. "I need to tell Dr. Brennan that I'm not a murderer."

Booth squatted down again and checked the wound once more. Since it was oozing, Booth felt Zach really would be alright. "We can tell her together if you want me to be there."

Surprised, Zach smiled. "Thank you, Agent Booth. I guess you're my friend after all. I was mistaken about you and I'm sorry."

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Let me know what you think of my story. Thank you.


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